DOCSLIB.ORG

The Public Good Nature of the Urban Forest and Implications for Management

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Public Good Nature of the Urban Forest and Implications for Management DRAFT The Public Good Nature of the Urban Forest and Implications for Management Shannon Lea Watkins School of Public and Environmental Affairs Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change April 8, 2015 Vincent and Elinor Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN Abstract: This paper uses the context of the urban forest to illustrate how identifying the nature of goods yields important implications for the management of natural resources. Urban trees provide an array of economic, social and environmental benefits, yet canopy cover in cities in the United States is frequently lower than desired and often decreasing. Given the public benefits of urban trees, some scholars have referred to urban trees as a public good. However, little work has given the discussion more than a few sentences and scholars disagree over the “nature of the good” for urban trees. Even less work has connected the public goods nature of the urban forest to the challenges of urban forest management or used it to inform evaluation of policy tools for urban forest management. This paper lays out the argument that the urban forest is best considered as a public good, rather than as a common pool resource. It then illustrates the implications of this argument for the health of the urban forest—without public intervention, there are fewer urban trees than is socially optimal. Finally, it discusses the implications of this argument for urban forest management, including a discussion of policy tools most suited to encourage tree planting and care. It concludes that two options offer opportunities to increase both public and private trees: grants to and coproduction with residents in planting and maintenance activities. 1 DRAFT 1.0 INTRODUCTION Urban trees provide an array of local and global benefits (i.e. ecosystem services), including benefits to the environment, to public health and to communities. Yet, urban forests have declined in many cities in the last few decades and urban canopy cover in many cities is below recommendations or targets (Nowak & Greenfield, 2012). Properly identifying “the nature of a good” is important to selecting appropriate strategies to address environmental problems (Gibson et al. 2000). Previous work in urban forestry has briefly mentioned the nature of the good (e.g., see Mincey et al. 2013), but there is disagreement among scholars whether components of the urban forest are public goods or common pool resources. Additionally, little work has given the discussion more than a few sentences (see Fischer & Steed 2008 for an exception). Even less work has connected the public goods nature of the urban forest to the challenges of urban forest management or used it to inform evaluation of policy tools for urban forest management. This paper lays out a more thorough treatment of the “nature of the good” question and demonstrate how an understanding of the nature of the good can inform management. Along the way, it seeks to clarify concepts and terms that have been inconsistently used in the literature and considers the extent to which we can draw on previous research in rural forests to understand management in urban forests. By examining the kinds of ecosystem services that urban forests provide (discussed in this introduction), Section 2.0 argues that the urban forest is best considered as a multi-faceted public good. The paper then draws some implications of this argument for the structure and function of the urban forest in Section 3.0—without public intervention, there are fewer urban trees than is socially optimal. Cities across the United States vary dramatically to the extent and manner in which they manage and regulate the urban forest (Profous & Loeb, 1990). Section 4.0 discusses policy tools for urban forest management and comment on their suitability in light of the discussion in section 3.0 and of the particular characteristics of the urban forest. 2 DRAFT Defining the urban forest Before tackling the “nature of the good,” this section defines the urban forest and its components. Tyrväinen and Väänänen consider the urban forest “wooded areas located within town limits or close to town” (Tyrväinen & Väänänen, 1998, p. 117). Their definition includes forested parks, recreation areas and protected forests but explicitly excludes constructed parks (Tyrväinen & Väänänen, 1998) and also seems to exclude trees near streets and in yards. Strom (2007, p. 99) offers a more inclusive definition of the urban forest: “the land in and around areas of intensive human influence, ranging from communities to dense urban centers, which is occupied or potentially occupied by trees and associated natural resources.” His definition includes land that is “planted or unplanted, used or unused, and includes public and private property and street, transportation and utility corridors” (Strom, 2007, p. 99). While Strom praises his definition for including potential future urban forests, this paper is concerned with the presence (and absence) of actual trees. The difference between planted and potentially planted land is significant. This paper considers the urban forest to be the land in and around areas of intensive human influence which is occupied by trees and associated natural resources. Frequently it refers to urban trees, the trees that are part of the urban forest. Urban trees grow in a number of different urban land areas, including in parks and recreation areas; near waterways and other natural features; in remnant forests; in brownfields and abandoned properties; in private yards, and in public rights of way along streets. Strom (2007) argues that the distribution of the urban forest between private and public land dictates the kind of policy that will effectively protect and improve urban forest structure and function. Much early urban forestry research focused on street trees and to a lesser extent, park trees (Loeb, 1987). An estimated 90% of urban trees are on private land on average (Gerhold, 2007), and recent research has considered policy related to these trees (Donovan & Butry, 2010). Noting the ecological importance of trees on both types of land, and noting the policy importance of distinguishing between these types of trees, this paper focuses on both “public trees” (trees growing on public land) and “private trees” (trees growing on private land)— collectively, urban trees. There is no consensus on the definition of street trees so this paper 3 DRAFT adopts a general definition used elsewhere (see Fischer and Steed 2008) and defines street trees to be those trees in cities that are located in close proximity to public streets. Street trees then, although commonly planted on public property, might be private or public trees. The benefits and costs of urban trees Benefits. Urban trees provide environmental, economic, health and social benefits (Peper, McPherson, Simpson, Vargas, & Xiao, 2009) at a number of scales. Trees can improve the local urban environment. They can filter particulate matter and other air pollutants to improve local air quality (Nowak 2006). They can intercept rain and help to reduce local flooding and can improve local water quality (Xiao, Mcpherson, Ustin, Grismer, & Simpson, 2000). Trees can also yield local economic benefits. Strategically planted trees can reduce cooling costs in summer by shading homes and reduce heating costs in winter by blocking cold winds (McPherson & Simpson, 2003). Trees have also been found to increase economic activity in urban business districts (Wolf, 2003), and to raise the value of both properties on which they are planted and of neighboring properties (Donovan & Butry, 2010). Urban trees have been found to improve health and well-being of individuals nearby. One of the most often cited values of urban trees is their contributions to city appearance (aesthetic benefits). Trees can also benefit public health. For example, trees were found to reduce mental fatigue and to increase ability to cope with critical issues for poor residents in urban public housing (Kuo, 2001); to reduce levels of stress in deprived communities (Ward Thompson et al., 2012); and to hasten recovery time of hospital patients (Ulrich, 1984). Trees can also serve architectural and design functions like acting as a screen to block an unsightly view (Ingram, 2007; Lawrence, 1995). At the city or regional level, trees provide significant environmental benefits, particularly in reducing urban temperatures and mitigating the urban heat island effect (Rosenzweig et al., 2006). Globally, urban trees also serve as a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide, and so contribute to climate change mitigation (Nowak & Crane, 2002). 4 DRAFT Benefits of trees as ecosystem services. Some scholars refer to the benefits of urban trees and other environmental amenities as ecosystem services—“the benefits people obtain from ecosystems” (Mincey et al. 2013, Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005 p. v). There are four primary types of ecosystem services: provisioning services (e.g. food, timber, water); regulating (e.g. climate regulation, water purification); supporting (e.g. nutrient cycling, photosynthesis), and cultural services (e.g. recreation, spiritual experience) (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). If we characterize the benefits of urban trees according to this typology of ecosystem services, a clear pattern emerges. Although some urban trees provide food (i.e. fruit trees), and a few urban trees might be harvested for timber (or, for
Load more

Recommended publications
  • What Equilibrium Concept for Public Goods Provision? I - the Convex Case
    Walras-Lindahl-Wicksell: What equilibrium concept for public goods provision ? I - The convex case Monique Florenzano To cite this version: Monique Florenzano. Walras-Lindahl-Wicksell: What equilibrium concept for public goods provision ? I - The convex case. 2009. halshs-00367867 HAL Id: halshs-00367867 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00367867 Submitted on 12 Mar 2009 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Documents de Travail du Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne Walras—Lindahl—Wicksell : What equilibrium concept for public goods provision ? I – The convex case Monique FLORENZANO 2009.09 Maison des Sciences Économiques, 106-112 boulevard de L'Hôpital, 75647 Paris Cedex 13 http://ces.univ-paris1.fr/cesdp/CES-docs.htm ISSN : 1955-611X WALRAS–LINDAHL–WICKSELL: WHAT EQUILIBRIUM CONCEPT FOR PUBLIC GOODS PROVISION? I - THE CONVEX CASE MONIQUE FLORENZANO Centre d’Economie de la Sorbonne, CNRS–Universit´eParis 1, monique.fl[email protected] Abstract. Despite the large number of its references, this paper is less a survey than a systematic exposition, in an unifying framework and assuming convexity as well on the consumption side as on the production side, of the different equilibrium concepts elaborated for studying provision of public goods.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods in Everyday Life
    Public Goods in Everyday Life By June Sekera A GDAE Teaching Module on Social and Environmental Issues in Economics Global Development And Environment Institute Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae Copyright © June Sekera Reproduced by permission. Copyright release is hereby granted for instructors to copy this module for instructional purposes. Students may also download the reading directly from https://ase.tufts.edu/gdae Comments and feedback from course use are welcomed: Global Development And Environment Institute Tufts University Somerville, MA 02144 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae E-mail: [email protected] PUBLIC GOODS IN EVERYDAY LIFE “The history of civilization is a history of public goods... The more complex the civilization the greater the number of public goods that needed to be provided. Ours is far and away the most complex civilization humanity has ever developed. So its need for public goods – and goods with public goods aspects, such as education and health – is extraordinarily large. The institutions that have historically provided public goods are states. But it is unclear whether today’s states can – or will be allowed to – provide the goods we now demand.”1 -Martin Wolf, Financial Times 1 Martin Wolf, “The World’s Hunger for Public Goods”, Financial Times, January 24, 2012. 2 PUBLIC GOODS IN EVERYDAY LIFE TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................................4 1.1 TEACHING OBJECTIVES: .....................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods for Economic Development
    Printed in Austria Sales No. E.08.II.B36 V.08-57150—November 2008—1,000 ISBN 978-92-1-106444-5 Public goods for economic development PUBLIC GOODS FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOR ECONOMIC GOODS PUBLIC This publication addresses factors that promote or inhibit successful provision of the four key international public goods: fi nancial stability, international trade regime, international diffusion of technological knowledge and global environment. Each of these public goods presents global challenges and potential remedies to promote economic development. Without these goods, developing countries are unable to compete, prosper or attract capital from abroad. The undersupply of these goods may affect prospects for economic development, threatening global economic stability, peace and prosperity. The need for public goods provision is also recognized by the Millennium Development Goals, internationally agreed goals and targets for knowledge, health, governance and environmental public goods. Because of the characteristics of public goods, leaving their provision to market forces will result in their under provision with respect to socially desirable levels. Coordinated social actions are therefore necessary to mobilize collective response in line with socially desirable objectives and with areas of comparative advantage and value added. International public goods for development will grow in importance over the coming decades as globalization intensifi es. Corrective policies hinge on the goods’ properties. There is no single prescription; rather, different kinds of international public goods require different kinds of policies and institutional arrangements. The Report addresses the nature of these policies and institutions using the modern principles of collective action. UNITED NATIONS INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION Vienna International Centre, P.O.
    [Show full text]
  • Neoliberalism and the Public Good in Higher Education
    BACHELOR THESIS CTP 01.11.2015 Neoliberalism and the Public Good in Higher Education Name: Svenja Mielke Student Number: 930119571030 Chair Group: Law and Governance Supervisors: Michiel Köhne and Elisabet Rasch Wageningen UR *Cover picture by Van Nispen (2015). Contents Contents ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 Foreword .................................................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ...................................................................................................................................................... 2 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 3 Problem Statement ...................................................................................................................... 4 Methods....................................................................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1. The Public Good and Neoliberalism ........................................................................................ 7 The Public Good ......................................................................................................................... 7 Neoliberalism .............................................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Market Failure Guide
    Market failure guide A guide to categorising market failures for government policy development and evaluation industry.nsw.gov.au Published by NSW Department of Industry PUB17/509 Market failure guide—A guide to categorising market failures for government policy development and evaluation An external academic review of this guide was undertaken by prominent economists in November 2016 This guide is consistent with ‘NSW Treasury (2017) NSW Government Guide to Cost-Benefit Analysis, TPP 17-03, Policy and Guidelines Paper’ First published December 2017 More information Program Evaluation Unit [email protected] www.industry.nsw.gov.au © State of New South Wales through Department of Industry, 2017. This publication is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material provided that the wording is reproduced exactly, the source is acknowledged, and the copyright, update address and disclaimer notice are retained. To copy, adapt, publish, distribute or commercialise any of this publication you will need to seek permission from the Department of Industry. Disclaimer: The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at the time of writing July 2017. However, because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that the information upon which they rely is up to date and to check the currency of the information with the appropriate officer of the Department of Industry or the user’s independent advisor. Market failure guide Contents Executive summary
    [Show full text]
  • Public Health Is a Public Good
    2 Letter From the Dean 2017 EDITION mailman.columbia.edu n the world’s first modern economic treatise, Public The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith introduced I the principle of public goods—things that, in his words, “may be in the highest degree advantageous Health to a great society, but are, however, of such a nature that the profits could never repay the expense to an Is a individual or small number of individuals, and which it therefore cannot be expected that any individual or small number of individuals can erect.” Lighthouses, Public bridges, and canals made Smith’s list. So, too, did “the most essential parts of education.” Good Nearly years later, Americans prize an array of public goods: our national parks, public transportation, clean air. In economic parlance, such goods are both available to and beneficial for all. Take clean air— anyone can inhale, and one person’s respiration does Dean Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH not deprive others of similar benefit. Let me then be so bold as to propose another public good: population health. Smith may have been a moral philosopher, but at its core, his take on the public good was strictly economic. Public goods spur commerce; illness erodes economic productivity. On that count alone, population health Accepting population demands our attention. Consider malaria. From to , more than one-third of the nations health as a public worldwide with intensive malaria had negative rates of economic growth; good can be the basis malaria-free countries boasted, on average, a . percent rate of growth. Closer to home, the Mailman School’s own Peter Muennig, MD, PhD, has for developing quantified the opportunity costs that accrue when children suer low-level and aligning eective lead exposure: nearly $ million in Flint, Michigan, alone.
    [Show full text]
  • Externalities and Public Goods Introduction 17
    17 Externalities and Public Goods Introduction 17 Chapter Outline 17.1 Externalities 17.2 Correcting Externalities 17.3 The Coase Theorem: Free Markets Addressing Externalities on Their Own 17.4 Public Goods 17.5 Conclusion Introduction 17 Pollution is a major fact of life around the world. • The United States has areas (notably urban) struggling with air quality; the health costs are estimated at more than $100 billion per year. • Much pollution is due to coal-fired power plants operating both domestically and abroad. Other forms of pollution are also common. • The noise of your neighbor’s party • The person smoking next to you • The mess in someone’s lawn Introduction 17 These outcomes are evidence of a market failure. • Markets are efficient when all transactions that positively benefit society take place. • An efficient market takes all costs and benefits, both private and social, into account. • Similarly, the smoker in the park is concerned only with his enjoyment, not the costs imposed on other people in the park. • An efficient market takes these additional costs into account. Asymmetric information is a source of market failure that we considered in the last chapter. Here, we discuss two further sources. 1. Externalities 2. Public goods Externalities 17.1 Externalities: A cost or benefit that affects a party not directly involved in a transaction. • Negative externality: A cost imposed on a party not directly involved in a transaction ‒ Example: Air pollution from coal-fired power plants • Positive externality: A benefit conferred on a party not directly involved in a transaction ‒ Example: A beekeeper’s bees not only produce honey but can help neighboring farmers by pollinating crops.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods: Examples
    Public Goods: Examples The classical definition of a public good is one that is non‐excludable and non‐rivalrous. The classic example of a public good is a lighthouse. A lighthouse is: Non‐excludable because it’s not possible to exclude some ships from enjoying the benefits of the lighthouse (for example, excluding ships that haven’t paid anything toward the cost of the lighthouse) while at the same time providing the benefits to other ships; and Non‐rivalrous because if the lighthouse’s benefits are already being provided to some ships, it costs nothing for additional ships to enjoy the benefits as well. This is not like a “rivalrous good,” where providing a greater amount of the good to someone requires either that more of the good be produced or else that less of it be provided to others – i.e., where there is a very real opportunity cost of providing more of the good to some people. Some other examples of public goods: Radio and television: Today no one who broadcasts a radio or TV program “over the air” excludes anyone from receiving the broadcast, and the cost of the broadcast is unaffected by the number of people who actually tune in to receive it (it’s non‐rivalrous). In the early decades of broadcasting, exclusion was not technologically possible; but technology to “scramble” and de‐scramble TV signals was invented so that broadcasters could charge a fee and exclude non‐ payers. Scrambling technology has been superseded by cable and satellite transmission, in which exclusion is possible. But while it’s now technologically possible to produce a TV or radio signal from which non‐payers are excluded (so that it’s not a public good), it’s important to note that because TV and radio signals are non‐rivalrous, they are technologically public goods: it’s technologically possible to provide them without exclusion.
    [Show full text]
  • Explain Externalities and Public Goods and How They Affect Efficiency of Market Outcomes.”
    Microeconomics Topic 9: “Explain externalities and public goods and how they affect efficiency of market outcomes.” Reference: Gregory Mankiw’s Principles of Microeconomics, 2nd edition, Chapters 10 and 11. The Efficiency of Private Exchange A private market transaction is one in which a buyer and seller exchange goods or services for money or other goods or services. The buyers and sellers could be individuals, corporations, or both. Voluntary private market transactions will occur between buyers and sellers only if both parties to the transaction expect to gain. If one of the parties expected to end up worse off as a result of the transaction, that transaction would not occur. Buyers and sellers have an incentive to find all the voluntary, private market transactions that could make them better off. When they have found and made all such possible transactions, then the market has achieved “an efficient allocation of resources.” This means that all of the resources that both buyers and sellers have are allocated so that these buyers and sellers are as well off as possible. For these reasons, private market transactions between buyers and sellers are usually considered to be “efficient” because these transactions result in all the parties being as well off as possible, given their initial resources. A more precise way of defining efficient production of a good is that we should produce more of a good whenever the added benefits are greater than the added costs, but we should stop when the added costs exceed the added benefits. Summary of conditions for efficient production (1) all units of the good are produced for which the value to consumers is greater than the costs of production, and (2) no unit of the good is produced that costs more to produce than the value it has for the consumers of that good.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods
    Public Goods 131 Undergraduate Public Economics Emmanuel Saez UC Berkeley 1 OUTLINE Chapter 7 7.1 Optimal Provision of Public Goods 7.2 Private Provision of Public Goods 7.3 Public Provision of Public Goods 7.4 Conclusion 2 PUBLIC GOODS: INTRODUCTION Private trash collection, financed by a voluntary fee paid by neighborhood residents, faces the classic free rider problem. Goods that suffer from this free rider problem are known in economics as public goods. 3 PUBLIC GOODS: DEFINITONS Pure public goods: Goods that are perfectly non-rival in consumption and are non-excludable Non-rival in consumption: One individual's consumption of a good does not affect another's opportunity to consume the good. Non-excludable: Individuals cannot deny each other the op- portunity to consume a good. Impure public goods: Goods that satisfy the two public good conditions (non-rival in consumption and non-excludable) to some extent, but not fully. 4 7 . 1 Optimal Provision of Public Goods Chapter 7 Public 7 Goods Chapter © 2007 Worth Publishers Public Finance and Public Policy, 2/e, Jonathan Gruber 4 of 21 7 . 1 Optimal Provision of Public Goods Optimal Provision of Private Goods Chapter 7 Public 7 Goods Chapter © 2007 Worth Publishers Public Finance and Public Policy, 2/e, Jonathan Gruber 6 of 21 OPTIMAL PROVISION OF PRIVATE GOODS Two goods: ic (ice-cream) and c (cookies) with prices Pic;Pc Pc = 1 is normalized to one (num´erairegood): Two individuals B and J Consumers demand different quantities of the good at the same market price. The optimality condition
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods Example and Problem1 Instructional Primer2
    Public Goods Example and Problem1 Instructional Primer2 Public goods share traits uniquely different than those of private goods. To begin with public goods are the byproduct of a market failure, typically arising from a collective action problem. For example, many in society want to enjoy the good, such as a road, bridge, or park, but few are interested in paying for it. Were private producers to provide the product the public’s demand may not be fully realized through the collection of revenues and the producer’s efforts may fail. Additionally, a public good is often deemed to be “good” for society by societal leaders, but may not be something that member of society are prepared or able to pay for through a usual system of providing and charging for the good. As such, most public goods are funded largely if not entirely through public coffers funded through the receipt of taxes. Public goods have two characteristics that set them apart from private goods: they are non-rival and non-excludable. By this we mean that one person’s use of the good does not exclude another from also using and enjoying it (non-excludable) and as such consumers have no motivation to compete for the good (non-rival). Whereas the price for a private good purchased by one consumer is typically equal to the price any consumer might be required to pay for the good, the price for a public good is the sum of the prices consumers are required to pay for the good (typically the result of the collection of taxes) and we consider this price to be equal to the marginal cost of providing the good.
    [Show full text]
  • Public Goods* by Matthew Kotchen† December 8, 2012
    Public Goods* By Matthew Kotchen† December 8, 2012 Pure public goods have two defining features. One is ‘non‐rivalry,’ meaning that one person’s enjoyment of a good does not diminish the ability of other people to enjoy the same good. The other is ‘non‐excludability,’ meaning that people cannot be prevented from enjoying the good. Air quality is an important environmental example of a public good. Under most circumstances, one person’s breathing of fresh air does not reduce air quality for others to enjoy, and people cannot be prevented from breathing the air. Public goods are defined in contrast to private goods, which are, by definition, both rival and excludable. A sandwich is a private good because one person’s consumption clearly diminishes its value for someone else, and sandwiches are typically excludable to all individuals not willing to pay. (This scenario does, of course, assume the proverbial no free lunch.) Many environmental resources are characterized as public goods, including water quality, open space, biodiversity, and a stable climate. These examples stand alongside the classic public goods of lighthouses, national defense, and knowledge. In some cases, however, it is reasonable to question whether environmental resources (and even the classic examples) are public goods in a fully pure sense. With open space, for example, congestion among those enjoying it may cause some degree of rivalry, and all open spaces are not accessible to everyone. Nevertheless, many environmental resources come close to satisfying the definition of pure public goods, and even when not exact (possibly closer to an impure public good), the basic concept is useful for understanding the causes of many environmental problems and potential solutions.
    [Show full text]